Vista networking "issues"

[evenflow]

Couple of weeks ago got a new PC with Vista preinstalled. All fine and dandy, could get on to the net fine through my ZyXel router.

And this morning it just stopped working - I got the message that the network had become "unidentified", and then "local only".

I've tried reboots, powercycling the router, ipconfig /all, "repairing" the connection, changing the properties to manually force an ip address and DNS servers, searching google and forums, all to no avail.

To cap it all, after restarting for the twentieth time, I now cannot even ping the router:

ping 192.168.1.1
PING: transmit failed, error code 1231.

WTF? I've wasted well over half a working day already on this pile of crap and am tempted to gp and procure a copy of XP. Anyone have any ideas at all? Thanks.

[Mattt]

Have you check the router from a different PC?

[evenflow]

I'm connected wirelessly through it on my laptop (what I'm on now)

[TheGriffalo]

Wired or wireless?

[evenflow]

Sorry, the PC I'm having the issue with is wired - it doesn't have a wireless adapter.

I'm posting this on my laptop wirelessly through the same router.

[TheGriffalo]

Right... What's the status of your wired adapter in the Network & Sharing centre?

[agent006]

Try updating (if available) or reinstalling the driver for your network card.

[evenflow]

agent006 said:

Try updating (if available) or reinstalling the driver for your network card.

Just downloading a driver now. Disabling/re-enabling and uninstall/reinstall didn't work I'm afraid.

[evenflow]

TheGriffalo said:

Right... What's the status of your wired adapter in the Network & Sharing centre?

Not sure how to find this? In the N&S centre I can see my PC connected to an "unidentified network", then no connection between this network and the internet (although I know there is as I'm on it now on a different machine).

[Zod]

this problem will magically go away at some random point. It is an infuriating "feature" of Vista. I haven't experienced it since installing the RC of SP1.

[TheGriffalo]

Back to basics...

Restart the machine and then ping 127.0.0.1 that's your local loopback address and will ensure your IP stack is sane. Next, ping 192.168.1.x where x is your local IP address and then finally try to ping the router again.

Once you've done that report the results back, along with the status of the port lights on your router and the lights on your PC's network card.

Should be able to figure it out from that info.

[evenflow]

TheGriffalo said:

Back to basics...

Restart the machine and then ping 127.0.0.1 that's your local loopback address and will ensure your IP stack is sane. Next, ping 192.168.1.x where x is your local IP address and then finally try to ping the router again.

Once you've done that report the results back, along with the status of the port lights on your router and the lights on your PC's network card.

Should be able to figure it out from that info.

I can ping localhost.
When I run ipconfig /all, I get:

Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address: 169.254.99.183

which doesn't look correct somehow...

[clonmult]

I've had exactly the same issue with Vista.

It'll drop its network connection, unable to connect to the router (via wireless), whereas the other devices in the house (PSP, Nokia 770 and 2 XP laptops) connect fine.

Sometimes it'll "miraculously" come back, but more often than not it requires a reboot.

[TheGriffalo]

evenflow said:

TheGriffalo said:

Back to basics...

Restart the machine and then ping 127.0.0.1 that's your local loopback address and will ensure your IP stack is sane. Next, ping 192.168.1.x where x is your local IP address and then finally try to ping the router again.

Once you've done that report the results back, along with the status of the port lights on your router and the lights on your PC's network card.

Should be able to figure it out from that info.

I can ping localhost.
When I run ipconfig /all, I get:

Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address: 169.254.99.183

which doesn't look correct somehow...

You've not got an IP address allocated from DHCP. First, right click the wired connection and click "repair" as that'll try to get you a fresh IP address. If that doesn't work, check your router is set up as a DHCP server from your working PC. If it is, temporarily give yourself an IP address of 192.168.1.9 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 and set your default gateway and DNS server to 192.168.1.1 on the non-working PC. That should fix it temporarily until you can figure out why DHCP isn't working.

Could be a firewall/trust issue but lets get it functioning again first.

[evenflow]

TheGriffalo said:

evenflow said:

TheGriffalo said:

Back to basics...

Restart the machine and then ping 127.0.0.1 that's your local loopback address and will ensure your IP stack is sane. Next, ping 192.168.1.x where x is your local IP address and then finally try to ping the router again.

Once you've done that report the results back, along with the status of the port lights on your router and the lights on your PC's network card.

Should be able to figure it out from that info.

I can ping localhost.
When I run ipconfig /all, I get:

Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address: 169.254.99.183

which doesn't look correct somehow...

You've not got an IP address allocated from DHCP. First, right click the wired connection and click "repair" as that'll try to get you a fresh IP address. If that doesn't work, check your router is set up as a DHCP server from your working PC. If it is, temporarily give yourself an IP address of 192.168.1.9 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 and set your default gateway and DNS server to 192.168.1.1 on the non-working PC. That should fix it temporarily until you can figure out why DHCP isn't working.

Could be a firewall/trust issue but lets get it functioning again first.

I'll inject thanks at this point for all your help so far.

Trying to "repair" the connection doesn't work. The router is set to server.

I've now manually set IP address, DNS and gateway as you suggested, and can now at least ping the router! It still isn't getting showing a connection to the internet.
When I "diagnose" the lack of connection, I get:

There may be a problem with your DNS configuration. Windows failed to find the well know host www.microsoft.com.

[TheGriffalo]

evenflow said:

TheGriffalo said:

evenflow said:

TheGriffalo said:

Back to basics...

Restart the machine and then ping 127.0.0.1 that's your local loopback address and will ensure your IP stack is sane. Next, ping 192.168.1.x where x is your local IP address and then finally try to ping the router again.

Once you've done that report the results back, along with the status of the port lights on your router and the lights on your PC's network card.

Should be able to figure it out from that info.

I can ping localhost.
When I run ipconfig /all, I get:

Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address: 169.254.99.183

which doesn't look correct somehow...

You've not got an IP address allocated from DHCP. First, right click the wired connection and click "repair" as that'll try to get you a fresh IP address. If that doesn't work, check your router is set up as a DHCP server from your working PC. If it is, temporarily give yourself an IP address of 192.168.1.9 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 and set your default gateway and DNS server to 192.168.1.1 on the non-working PC. That should fix it temporarily until you can figure out why DHCP isn't working.

Could be a firewall/trust issue but lets get it functioning again first.

I'll inject thanks at this point for all your help so far.

Trying to "repair" the connection doesn't work. The router is set to server.

I've now manually set IP address, DNS and gateway as you suggested, and can now at least ping the router! It still isn't getting showing a connection to the internet.
When I "diagnose" the lack of connection, I get:

There may be a problem with your DNS configuration. Windows failed to find the well know host www.microsoft.com.

IPconfig your good machine and set your DNS to the same IP address that that is using.

[evenflow]

Good machine is using 192.168.1.1 as dns server

A further pain in the arse, ipconfig /renew on the bad machine reveals:

An error occurred while releasing interface Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1 : The system cannot find the file specified. The operation failed as no adapter is in the state permissible for this operation.

Is this a hardware problem with the network card?

[agent006]

evenflow said:

Is this a hardware problem with the network card?

Could well be.

[TheGriffalo]

agent006 said:

evenflow said:

Is this a hardware problem with the network card?

Could well be.

Not in that particular scenario, it means the machine is set for static IP therefore it can't release it's IP address. Double check your DNS really is set to 192.168.1.1 on the problem machine.

[evenflow]

TheGriffalo said:

agent006 said:

evenflow said:

Is this a hardware problem with the network card?

Could well be.

Not in that particular scenario, it means the machine is set for static IP therefore it can't release it's IP address. Double check your DNS really is set to 192.168.1.1 on the problem machine.

Well that's something at least!

On the problem machine:
IPv4 Address: 192.168.1.9
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers: 192.168.1.1